Chris, this really does match the “deceptively amazing yet simple” description you gave it. I blogged on Wordpress for years and participated in a close-knit and wide ranging group of bloggers. I run, ran, set up, host, installed, fixed, designed, consulted for and cussed at hundreds of websites for friends, nonprofits and customers. There have always been different types of issues but one common thread permeated them all.

Monetizing participation.

“How do I get people to comment?”
“How can I get them to engage?”
“How do I keep subscribers?”
“How do I know I’m relevant to the market?”

Some bloggers took sponsors and we’d wonder about their motivations. We added URL fields to comment blocks so people could “sign” their comments with their blogs so it was a kind of advertising. People got more traffic if they commented on other blogger’s blogs.

We know from Brave’s BAT experiment that there’s interest in monetizing people’s attention, so why not people’s engagement?

I can’t wait to try this out